Outstanding Question

Will the presidential debates ever include third-party candidates again? Two-thirds of Americans say they want the option to vote for a third-party candidate. Thanks to unelected members of the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD), even if a third-party candidate manages to make a serious showing, they likely wouldn’t be allowed to debate on the national stage. After Ross Perot’s 1992 campaign, the CPD now requires candidates to poll above 15 percent in five polls—and the CPD can also pick and choose the polls. Experts peg the cost for an independent candidate to get to 15 percent at $270 million, money that no independent candidate is likely to raise. A proposal to allow a third-party candidate on the ballot in enough states to win the electoral college has been effectively stonewalled. For now, the two-party duopoly on the presidential debates seems unshakable.

Weekend Read

It reportedly took a jury 19 minutes to convict Melissa of introducing the drug into her son’s body. She was sentenced to 20 years in the Arkansas Department of Corrections, the maximum for this type of crime. In all, she lived with Michael as his mother for less than a year.

“By the time they actually took her to trial, she had rehabilitated herself,” Melissa’s child-custody attorney, Pamela Fisk, told me. “She had done the drug treatment, she had done parenting, she had done counseling. She had done everything the state had put in place. This is punishment. This is not rehabilitation.”